“I’m sorry,” I say, looking around the living room.
Veronique smiles like nothing happened. “It’s static. I attract it like crazy.” She reaches out and puts a finger gently on the back of my hand. “See? It’s gone now.”
“Right,” I manage. “Static.” I swallow hard and try to slow my breathing. The black notes on the page look like ants, and make about as much sense right this minute. “Which phrase was it again?”
Veronique points to the music with her bow, this time keeping a careful distance between the two of us. “The transition here, to this D sharp.”
It takes everything I have to concentrate on the paper in front of me. “It’s like this.” I show her the fingering while my mind races with images of carriages and a broken cello. Veronique doesn’t seem to notice anything wrong as we finish the lesson.
I close the door behind her just as Mom calls from the kitchen. “Hey, can you go out and grab the garbage cans? I forgot to bring them in when I got home.”
Still a little shaky, I call back, “Yeah. No problem.”
As I walk down the steps to the street, I try to think about what I was doing when the visions happened. Something is triggering them, but it seems so random that I can’t figure out what. Grabbing the can, I turn to wheel it up the curb when I see Griffon sitting on the planter box next to our stairs.
I jump back, losing my balance on the curb. “God! You scared me!”
“Sorry,” he says, standing up and walking toward me. “I didn’t mean to. Baseball practice was canceled today, so I thought I’d come by.”
“It’s okay,” I say, stepping back onto the sidewalk. I glance up at his face and know I’m not going to be able to keep the grin off mine. “You could have knocked, you know. You didn’t have to sit out here.”
“I know,” he says. “But I didn’t want to interrupt your lesson. You play beautifully. Kat wasn’t exaggerating.”
“What do you mean?”
“The cello. Earlier. I heard you playing just before Veronique came.” He points to the half-opened bay window in the living room.
I glance irritably at the window, wondering who else in the neighborhood heard me. I can’t believe he spent the last half hour just sitting down here. “Thanks. But I didn’t know anyone could hear me.” I think for a second. “And how did you know her name?”
“Veronique? You told me. At the restaurant. You said she’s your Thursday at four.”
“Did I?”
He shrugs. “I have a pretty good memory. Here, let me help you.” Griffon grabs the other two cans and follows me to the side of the house, where we park them up against the ivy. As we start to walk away, one can begins to roll toward the sidewalk.
“Whoa!” Griffon yells, and reaches around me to stop it. As he does, his shoulder bumps mine and my eyesight gets fuzzy just for a moment.
I blink, and see Griffon watching me intently. “Has that been happening a lot?” he asks quietly.
“What?” I shake my head to clear it. I can feel beads of panicky sweat trickle down my back.
“That,” he says, his eyes locked on mine. “You were somewhere else, weren’t you? Just for a second.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, running my hands over my hair.
Griffon steps closer. “You said it in the Armouries Cafe the day we met. The feelings of deja vu. The blackouts. Strange feelings. Experiencing things you couldn’t possibly have seen.” He bends down until I can feel his warm breath on the back of my neck. The sensation causes me to inhale sharply. “Look, you don’t have to hide it from me,” he says softly. “I get it. I understood the minute I met you in London. I’ve been there. I can help.”
Tears fill my eyes as I look up at him. I thought things were getting better, but they aren’t. I didn’t leave the visions in London—they’ve followed me here, and are happening more and more often. The thought that Griffon might really understand is overwhelming. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, part of me wanting to run inside and slam the door and make it all go away. But I know it’s not going away. I have to find a way to deal with what’s happening.
“Can you come out for a little while?” he asks. “We need to be alone if we’re going to talk.”
I shake my head. “No. I … um … I’m waiting for a friend to come over.” Rayne and I are supposed to go to the movies at the Red Vic, but that all seems so far away right now.
“It won’t take long,” he says. He indicates the house. “I think someone’s worried.”
I look up in time to see Dad pulling back the curtains in his office that overlooks the front of the house. I wave at him and he tentatively waves back, raising his eyebrows at the sight of Griffon.
Griffon turns back to me. “If you want help—if you want answers, then come with me. If not, then go back in the house and I won’t talk to you about this again. But just know that what’s happening to you isn’t going to stop. It’s only going to get worse.”
Answers. What kind of rational answers can he possibly give me for what’s been happening? Just the